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Cushman & Wakefield Knowledge Center reports detail global economic challenges

NEW YORK – Cushman & Wakefield, Inc. launched the first of its bi-monthly series of Economic Pulse reports on the business and real estate conditions in Asia, Europe and the U.S. The reports, posted on Cushman & Wakefield’s online Knowledge Center, confirm that the commercial real estate industry will bear the brunt of the global downturn in 2009; however, low supply has had a stabilizing effect in certain markets and some regions will recover faster than others.

Asia Pacific
Events in 2009 will provide a series of economic turning points for Asia, relative to the rest of the world. Four factors are continuing to transmit the economic crisis to Asia which has shown resilience in recent quarters. At the start of 2009, falling confidence, tight liquidity, the potential for foreign exchange volatility and trade imbalances are beginning to produce economic stress thereby increasing short term risk profiles in various countries.

Despite increased political and social risks throughout areas of Asia, the region is expected to be one of the first to recover as low debt levels and falling commodity prices help restart Asian economic growth.

Europe
The full force of the economic downturn is now being felt in Europe, and it is clear there is further negative news to come in 2009 as corporate de-stocking and weakening exports add to the problems caused by a retraction in consumer spending, credit shortages and uncertainty in the financial markets. Expectations for GDP growth have fallen across the region, with a contraction of 1.5 percent now forecast for the West with a 2 percent to 2.5 percent drop in Ireland and the UK, and a more restrained fall of less than 0.5 percent in Finland and Norway. The consensus view among economists is that we are closer to the nadir of the current downturn in many countries in terms of quarter-on-quarter growth.

The United States
The United States is clearly at its worst point in the current cycle as employers continue to shed jobs at an aggressive pace in the face of declining sales and overall economic uncertainty. Employment is likely to continue a downward slide in the near term; however, improvement is expected as 2009 unfolds. Political change in Washington, combined with an aggressive economic stimulus package, a loosening in credit markets and steep declines in energy and commodities, is expected to produce a resumption in GDP growth, probably sometime in the third quarter.